First of 500 buildings razed for O’Hare runway

Bensenville demolition comes amid doubts over airport expansion plan

March 25, 2010|By Jon Hilkevitch, Tribune reporter

Demolition of the first of 500 buildings in Bensenville, including a laundromat and restaurant, began on Wednesday to make way for O'Hare International Airport's expansion. Doubts have arisen about whether the airport project will be completed. (Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune)

The remnants of a laundromat and a fast-food restaurant known in the Bensenville neighborhood for its tasty hot dogs fell like matchsticks to O'Hare International Airport's expansion plans on Wednesday.

It took only minutes for the walls and roof to tumble on a commercial building that also housed two other businesses.

A pair of backhoes armed with claws called "munchers" ripped down the brick exterior of the first of about 500 buildings in the northwest suburb that will leveled. The demolitions are set to make way for the final new runway planned in Chicago's $15 billion overhaul of O'Hare.

Dust from the teardown, at 439 E. Irving Park Road, seemed to swirl together with clouds of doubt over the prospects of Chicago completing the massive project, especially with the airline industry in financial turmoil.

Bensenville Village President Frank Soto acknowledged there are no guarantees the runway will be built. Soto late last year accepted a $16 million payment to the village from Chicago along with other enticements in exchange for Bensenville dropping its decades-long opposition to O'Hare expansion.

Asked by a reporter Wednesday whether he would object to other uses of the more than 400 acres in Bensenville that Chicago acquired under eminent domain rules if O'Hare expansion were retooled, Soto said: "We wouldn't mind not having a runway there."

Chicago Aviation Commissioner Rosemarie Andolino quickly countered that the city fully intends to build the runway, although she could not provide a time line or funding strategy.

"We are continuing to work with our airline partners," Andolino said during a media event held on the centerline of a different runway that is only partly built. The runway cannot be completed until the courts decide the fate of a small cemetery that sits in the runway's path.

Chicago officials have not identified funding to build the southern runway on the Bensenville land or pay for other key elements of O'Hare expansion.

The airlines serving O'Hare, meanwhile, refuse to help finance passenger terminals that the carriers say are poorly conceived. Also, the financially struggling airlines are angered by hikes in landing fees and other charges imposed this year at O'Hare.

Near Irving Park Road, demolition of the first former residences in Bensenville will start soon, O'Hare expansion spokeswoman Eve Rodriguez said. She could not provide a specific date.

But the demolitions will be completed by the end of September, said Andolino, who waited five years for this day.

"We have made significant progress," she said, adding that 66 trees in the village's demolition zone have been saved and will be replanted on airport property.